The grandson of a good friend of mine played in his last high school football game this evening. It was a playoff game and the winner continued on to play in the division Super Bowl. My friend invited me to come and asked that I bring along my camera.

Here are a few shots from the game, played under the lights of a 'typical' high school football field.
Bear in mind:
Lighting wasn't great -adequate would be the term I'd use.
This is the first time I've tried the D7000 + 70-200mm f2.8 VR lens to shoot football.
I couldn't get really close to the field, so had to shoot from above which introduced a lot of players, coaches, etc. in the foreground.

Sorry for taking so long to respond-haven't been near the computer all day today.

But, to answer your question, I haven't adjusted the Hi ISO-NR setting since I got the camera. It is currently set for NORM. Frankly, I didn't think to adjust it.
We were late getting to the game and it was already in the 2nd period. As a result, I also forgot that I had placed a high limit of 400 for the ISO value.
I turned the camera on and pressed the iso button to the left of the LCD screen and set the ISO to 2500 and the camera told me that I didn't have enough light to get a properly exposed image. I kept adjusting the ISO higher and higher, not realizing that the limit I had placed on it (on another shoot) was overriding my ISO adjustments. I took bunch of shots with the camera warning me that I couldn't shoot faster than 1/320sec.
Once I realized what had happened, I went into the menu and adjusted the high ISO value to 6400 and the camera had no problem working properly at a shutter speed of 1/800sec.

The field has a typical high school football field with fairly good lighting but nothing like the lighting found in an NFL stadium. There were lots of dark areas that did present some issues. But, for the most part once the ISO limit was increased, the D7000+70-200mm F2.8VR combo was a joy to use.

Arguably, the shots are not what I would consider as great. But, based on the limitations imposed, they came out ok. I would have loved to get out on the sidelines, but that was verboten. If I shot from the stand to get above the people on the sidelines, I was pretty far away. If I got on the field level behind the gate, I had to contend with trying to find a hole to shoot thru as the players, cheerleaders, and photogs pretty much clogged up the sidelines.

Here are a couple of add'l shots from last nights game:

This last image is pretty typical of what I encountered when trying to shoot from field level.

ISO 6400 on a crop camera looking that good???? We've come a long way!!!

Sure, getting up to the side lines would be a good thing, both for controlling DOF, and getting up close to the players, but there are hazzards. Limiting your vision to 10 degrees with players flying around can do dammage to old bones.

ISO 6400 on a crop camera looking that good???? We've come a long way!!!

Sure, getting up to the side lines would be a good thing, both for controlling DOF, and getting up close to the players, but there are hazzards. Limiting your vision to 10 degrees with players flying around can do dammage to old bones.